While some top brass buy, others sell stock

Patrick Shutt, president and CEO of Chicago's UAXS Global Holdings Inc., declared last month that he and other managers and directors will soon start purchasing shares of their struggling telecommunications services firm on the open market.

Patrick Shutt, president and CEO of Chicago's UAXS Global Holdings Inc., declared last month that he and other managers and directors will soon start purchasing shares of their struggling telecommunications services firm on the open market.

Well, better late than never.

He's one of the few Chicago tech chiefs planning to snap up his company's undervalued shares at a time when other executives are dumping stock. But the announcement also marks a reversal of sorts, since Mr. Shutt and second-in-command Robert Pommer sold a large chunk of their own stock earlier this year.

Indeed, several of Chicago's high-profile tech leaders have recently bailed out of holdings in a tough market, an act that smacks of desperation to Wall Street  and to underlings.

Here's a sample of the activity: Christopher Galvin, CEO of Schaumburg's Motorola Inc., sold a total of 228,000 shares for $3.2 million in July; CEO Robert Taylor of Focal Communications Corp. sold 175,000 shares for $1.1 million in April, and Braun Consulting Inc. CEO Steven Braun notified regulators in August that he intended to sell 50,000 shares.

UAXS, the new holding company for Universal Access Inc., has been socked by the shakeout in the telecom sector, its stock plunging 90% to about $1.50 this year. The market's abuse appears somewhat unfair, since the company, which provides telecom carriers with maps of the global highway of copper and fiber networks, is on track to be profitable by early 2002.

Messrs. Shutt and Pommer, the company's founders, didn't help its cause by unloading a combined 875,000 shares for more than $6 million between February and July. The sales were planned far in advance as an effort to diversify a small portion of their holdings. The two executives still control more than 10 million shares  about 11%  of total UAXS equity. "Almost all their net worth is tied up in the company," says Bob Brown, the company's chief financial officer and treasurer. "They wanted security for themselves and their families."

That's understandable. But their actions likely made other shareholders mighty insecure. It remains to be seen whether their plans to promote insider buying will soothe a jittery market.

Wireless software company takes wing:

Barrington-based Syclo LLC has landed a big client for its mobile applications  Chicago's very own Boeing Co. Starting in October, Boeing will roll out a work-order management system on its factory floors that uses Syclo's Smart wireless software to give workers access to job plans, inventories and other data via hand-held devices.Boeing is among the 300 blue-chip companies using Syclo software to provide mobile links to streamline business and cut paperwork for workers in the field and on the factory floor. Named for CEO Richard Padula's daughters Sydney and Chloe, Syclo appears to be successfully carving a niche for controlled, internal wireless applications.

Lante Corp.'s European-sounding name lends cachet to the Chicago consultancy. So, what does it mean? Nothing, acknowledges co-founder and Chairman Mark Tebbe. He cooked up the name in 1985 as a contraction of Langer Tebbe & Associates, following a formula suggested by Nolan Bushnell. He's the godfather of video games, inventor of the Atari brand and a close friend of Mr. Tebbe's. The tip: Create a two-syllable name that ends in a vowel. "Of course, Atari has three syllables," Mr. Tebbe notes.

Them's fightin' words:

San Diego is kicking sand on Chicago's efforts to bill itself as the leading center for wireless innovation. The surf city's telecom industry has launched San Diego Telecom1, a marketing campaign designed to attract startups and tech talent. Marco Thompson, president of the San Diego Telecom Council, notes the city is home to the U.S. Navy's communications research and 500 telecom firms. "Our goal is to remind the world that San Diego is the center of the telecom universe. Some places like Chicago haven't figured that out yet."